Whispering the T Word

John Latta - Dec 05, 2012

TAX! Nothing like shouting a three-letter word ending in X to get your attention. But no, we’re not talking income tax. The gas tax is back on a table in Washington. The 18.3 cents a gallon tax, un-indexed and unchanged in almost ...

Kirk Landers, Editor Emeritus

Better Roads Staff - Dec 01, 2012

One More Letter to Write By Kirk Landers With another bitterly contentious election under our belts, most Americans would like to live in a world without politicians and robocalls and super PACs for at least a little while. But for people in ...

It’s Still Raining Obvious, Congressman.

John Latta - Oct 12, 2012

FLASHBACK -- Here's a paper from 2003. I stumbled on it and deja vu! It's simple title is A Dozen Reasons for Raising Gasoline Taxes. Reading it is weird: the 12 arguments are not old. All the way through the winding ...

Kirk Landers, Editor Emeritus

Better Roads Staff - Aug 05, 2012

Passing a Kidney Stone kirk.landers@att.net “A tie,” football coach Vince Lombardi is said to have famously said, “is like kissing your sister.” If we accept this wisdom from the Green Bay Packers legend, it follows that the recently enacted federal transportation bill ...

Kirk Landers — Editor Emeritus

Better Roads Staff - Jul 03, 2012

Five Radical Concepts kirk.landers@att.net From traffic gridlock to sunbathing, summer brings most of us some long hours in which contemplative thought is possible. If you have trouble thinking of something to ponder, here are five possibilities … 1. It’s time for the ...

Running out of gas money

John Latta - Feb 01, 2012

A new Congressional Budget Office report says that the Highway Trust Fund may be empty by fiscal year 2014. According to The Hill's transportation blog the CBO report projects the highway trust to have $12 billion at the end of ...

Mica’s Move is Made: Now let’s keep moving

John Latta - Feb 01, 2012

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica and Members of the committee unveiled the American Energy an Infrastructure Jobs Act yesterday. I would like to think contractors, subs, agencies,equipment dealerships and OEMs are excited and getting ready to move quickly ...

Think Locally, Act Nationally – Carnegie Report

John Latta - Jan 09, 2012

The best thinkers -- and doers -- in transportation infrastructure might just be found far far from our nation's capital. When it comes to giving America the best transportation infrastructure it can have, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says, basically, ...

I’d borrow for infrastructure says leading GOP candidate

John Latta - Dec 19, 2011

Guess who said this? "You have to prioritize those things which are most important to you and infrastructure and having good roads and bridges and rail lines and air traffic lines and so forth are essential for a strong ...

Wanna hear something scary?

John Latta - Aug 17, 2011

According to Politico's Ben Smith there is a little known upcoming event that is probably nothing to worry about. Most of the gas tax is set to expire on September 30. Actually all but 4.3 cents of the 18.4 cents is on ...

Work Trucks Set New Efficiency Standards

John Latta - Aug 09, 2011

Work trucks, including pickups and dumps trucks, buses and other heavy-duty vehicles will, for the first time, have to trim fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions under new efficiency standards. The White House says the standards – which ...

More Here = Less There

John Latta - Aug 05, 2011

This calculation is so simple that even I, who is severely math-challenged, can do it. If the fuel tax remains the same but the amount of fuel used goes down, less money is generated. The White House says: On Tuesday, August 9, ...

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